Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Science podcasts now ‘gender neutral’ about pregnancy

156 replies

WinterNeverChristmas · 28/12/2021 22:42

Listening to the ‘Brains On!’ Podcast about innies versus outies and other pregnancy related facts. Really excited that there was a new (to us), interesting podcast on science for our DC. However, quickly the podcast is all about how a placenta grows within a ‘pregnant person’ etc etc. That phrase was mentioned no less than 20 times. No mention of the fact that it’s actually a woman who has a child. Nope we are pregnant people now. It’s science.

OP posts:
GoatsAndBarley · 29/12/2021 13:12

If it is about pregnancy, why would somebody unable to get pregnant be interested in it? If somebody has no womb, it wouldn't be of relevance to them

That's weird. Are you not interested in any biological facts if they are not directly relevant to your own body then?

sst1234 · 29/12/2021 13:15

@worriedaboutfitness

Okay, I’ll bite.

What would you call a man who has a womb? Or an intersex person who has both reproductive organs? Do you really not see how ‘people’ is the easiest way to include everyone?

Do intersex people give birth?
bordermidgebite · 29/12/2021 13:15

The female ones often can

bordermidgebite · 29/12/2021 13:16

@xfgdhfgnhkk007

And anti matter ?

GoatsAndBarley · 29/12/2021 13:17

What would you call a man who has a womb?

I just asked my 12 year old. Thank goodness, despite all the madness, he immediately knew the correct answer.

It's woman. In case you didn't know.

Or an intersex person who has both reproductive organs?

Extremely rare. Not necessary to remove words that describes the vast majority for this.

Do you really not see how ‘people’ is the easiest way to include everyone?

Don't you see how this language excludes rather than includes?

Cherryblossoms85 · 29/12/2021 13:18

I don't know. Thing is I saw a really vitriolic thread bout the trans man who was having a baby and didn't want to be referred to as a mother. I think he's a bit misguided, in that mother doesn't have to negate his male identity, it just has etymological roots in mammary glands. It seemed mean to slag him off quite so much and whatever really if he wants to be a pregnant man. But of course every time this happens, every organisation on the planet runs scared of the 1 in 10000 that don't want to be a pregnant woman or expectant mother and then the other 9999 of us can't be that either. That's what pisses me off.

Whatwouldscullydo · 29/12/2021 13:20

Well quite goats

Many decades ago, men kept women ignorant of their bodies and what would happen to them as a way of controlling them. Women were forced underground to deal with unwanted pregnancies or birth control. Women died died as a result.

Men in Many countries do still control women amd their bodies. Refusing them.access to.medical.care or birth control and education.

I view all this as no different. Its just the modern way to bring up children unaware of their bodies and the vulnerabilities it would bring them.

The adults these days know.. they know what they are. They might not like it but they do know.

Keeping women in.particular ( women who are already neglected in medicine anyway due to being treated as small.men and not someone who has thousands of genetic differences to their male counterparts ) out of the conversation is already dangerous.

Do we want to.add child to the mix? We should be asking why sex education was brought into schools in the first place and who benefits from children being clueless about their sex and their bodies and therfore vulnerable to anything anyone tells them about it.

SammyScrounge · 29/12/2021 13:39

@Linguini

Do you really not see how ‘people’ is the easiest way to include everyone?

Excluding women isn't very inclusive is it.

Not everyone can get pregnant. Only women can get pregnant. Trying to make pregnancy inclusive of anyone except women is a pipe dream.
Whatsnewpussyhat · 29/12/2021 13:47

No man has ever been pregnant.

If any of the minuscule number of females who want to say they are men or anything other than a woman, decide to use their FEMALE organs to produce a baby, (funny how this doesn't 'trigger' them isn't it. Just the word woman) they can simply ask their own midwife and other medical professionals involved to call them whatever they want and stop demanding that 50% of the population pretend THEIR sex based reality no longer matters or exists.

By getting pregnant they know damn well what sex they are. So why should the rest of us pretend they are somehow special or different to any other woman who has a baby?

Franca123 · 29/12/2021 13:54

I felt sick when perusing the NHS website recently about a very female matter, directly pertinent to me right now, to read 'person with a uterus'. It's simply dehumanising and misogynistic. The idea that I would let the NHS touch me when they so clearly disrespect women. Luckily the private hospital up the road correctly identified me as a woman on their website so I'll be booking the procedure with them after the new year.

NdujaWannaDance · 29/12/2021 13:57

Okay, I’ll bite.

What would you call a man who has a womb?

What do you call rhino with a trunk?
What do you call a cow with wings?

Seriously, what do you call them?

If a man has a womb it's because he's intersex and has been oberved as being genitally male at birth.

If a trans man has a womb it's because he's a trans man.

Men do not have wombs unless they have an intersex condition.

Or an intersex person who has both reproductive organs? Do you really not see how ‘people’ is the easiest way to include everyone?

I see how it would be appropriate to refer to someone intersex who has completely ambiguous genitalia, mix and match internal reproductive organs and presents completely ambiguously as neither obviously male or female, because biologically they are both, or neither as a 'person.'

Unless you knew that the individual in question had a preferred sex/gender identity that they use, in which case I'd use that.

But as most intersex conditions cause sterility there is not often a need to describe a pregnant intersex person as anything at all, and if they have achieved pregnancy and vaginal childbirth then can quite rightly be called a woman, as biologically, whatever else they've got going on that is complicated and non-standard, they probably are one.

The simple fact is that no woman ever impregnated another woman with her penis using semen from her testicles and no man ever released eggs from his ovaries, grew a baby in his womb and then birthed it vaginally.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 29/12/2021 13:57

@GoatsAndBarley

If it is about pregnancy, why would somebody unable to get pregnant be interested in it? If somebody has no womb, it wouldn't be of relevance to them

That's weird. Are you not interested in any biological facts if they are not directly relevant to your own body then?

Not really, if the presentation is unscientific cobblers, no.
hugr · 29/12/2021 13:59

@Linguini

Do you really not see how ‘people’ is the easiest way to include everyone?

Excluding women isn't very inclusive is it.

How does it exclude women? Are women not people?
hugr · 29/12/2021 14:04

Language matters, and cloaking 'pregnant women' in 'pregnant people' obfuscates matters. As I said before - it does not benefit women.

If you're so insistent that trans men are women, then it does benefit women.

NeedsCharging · 29/12/2021 14:07

How does it exclude women? Are women not people

It excludes women from the specialist healthcare and social protection they need.
Using people basically means all people are discriminated against therefore there can be no discrimination so no need for protection.

Are you the kind of person that answers black lives matter with people's lives matter?

Whatwouldscullydo · 29/12/2021 14:07

Are you pregnant with your identity or your body?

What is the collective term for adult human females that distinguish them separately from.adult human males.

Does such a word exist? What is it?

GoatsAndBarley · 29/12/2021 14:08

Not really, if the presentation is unscientific cobblers, no.

I did say facts. Not unscientific cobblers. I'm not interested in unscientific cobblers either. And there is too much unscientific cobblers about in the rush to score woke points. I am interested in biological facts. Even facts that are not directly related to me.

NdujaWannaDance · 29/12/2021 14:10

Are you pregnant with your identity or your body?

Succinctly and perfectly put.

hugr · 29/12/2021 14:10

@NeedsCharging

How does it exclude women? Are women not people

It excludes women from the specialist healthcare and social protection they need.
Using people basically means all people are discriminated against therefore there can be no discrimination so no need for protection.

Are you the kind of person that answers black lives matter with people's lives matter?

Can you give an example? Where this has happened because of the use of people instead of women?
LegoPandemic · 29/12/2021 14:12

A person who is pregnant is by definition a woman ie adult human female. A man cannot get pregnant as they are male.
Was the rest of the program cobblers too?

Franca123 · 29/12/2021 14:13

How can you campaign for women's rights if there's no word for women?

NeedsCharging · 29/12/2021 14:16

Can you give an example? Where this has happened because of the use of people instead of women?

The removal of the word woman from healthcare, law and socal aspects is a new phenomenon which has thankfully met with push back resulting in the word woman still meaning female in many areas but not all. Should the push back not happen we will see the loss of the specific needs women and girls require not being met.

Womens and girls sport is one area affected. Womens SA services and refuges are another. When you remove the word woman and replace it with people then those spaces and services exclude the very women that need them.

xfgdhfgnhkk007 · 29/12/2021 14:17

@Whatsnewpussyhat

No man has ever been pregnant.

If any of the minuscule number of females who want to say they are men or anything other than a woman, decide to use their FEMALE organs to produce a baby, (funny how this doesn't 'trigger' them isn't it. Just the word woman) they can simply ask their own midwife and other medical professionals involved to call them whatever they want and stop demanding that 50% of the population pretend THEIR sex based reality no longer matters or exists.

By getting pregnant they know damn well what sex they are. So why should the rest of us pretend they are somehow special or different to any other woman who has a baby?

Never understood that either - why didn't pregnancy and birthing traumatise them seeing as they're in the "wrong body"? Yet being called mother on the BC is somehow more triggering.. they can't deny that it's the essence of "motherhood" what they did, it's NOT fatherhood is it! The poor child deserves to know who their mother is, even if it's who they call Dad!
NeedsCharging · 29/12/2021 14:18

hugr I kindly answered your question would you please answer mine?

Are you the kind of person that answers black lives matter with people's lives matter?

KewMummy87 · 29/12/2021 14:46

I’ve messaged them to complain. Here’s a link for anyone else who would like to point out that “pregnant woman” is not a dirty phrase and is actually scientific fact.

www.brainson.org/contact